


just another sleepy southern town

by YouDontRememberTheSomme



Category: The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Catching Up, M/M, Post-War, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22553113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouDontRememberTheSomme/pseuds/YouDontRememberTheSomme
Summary: He has a choice - stay or continue.
Relationships: Eugene Sledge/Jay De L’Eau
Kudos: 8





	just another sleepy southern town

When Jay stepped off the train, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Just another sleepy southern town, like so many he’d passed on the way here. Nothing about it seemed particularly remarkable, but then again, neither had the man when he first met him.

Fresh off the docks, he’d had an air of something like eagerness and something like apprehension. 

Jay already knew that innocence wouldn’t last.

~*~

Sledge hadn’t expected the day to be out of the ordinary. Just another Sunday when he got breakfast at a local place before going home to study for the coming week.

He took his usual seat at a booth by a window, gazing out and not really paying attention to the others there, but one voice quickly caught his notice.

It struck him, almost making him forget how to breathe. It was one he’d recognize anywhere, even with five years having passed since he last heard it.

Gene turned his head, being met with a face he was so used to seeing smeared with dirt and ash and sweat.

“De L’Eau?’ Sledge asked, standing up.

Jay turned, a part of him bowled over with how little Gene had changed.

“Sledgehammer!” he greeted, a smile on his face. “I’d recognize that red hair anywhere.”

Gene hadn’t seen that smile in a long time. Jay hadn’t been smiling the last time he saw him, when he explained that he’d been transferred out of K Company.

The thought made a spot behind his ribs ache. He’d always been worried something would happen to his friend - always so skittish, so unpredictable. He remembered all the times he’d overheard conversation from men in other companies, listening to them mention casualties and hoping Jay wasn’t one of them. 

But here he was, whole and safe save for something so empty in his dark eyes.

“Sit,” Gene heard himself say, waving a hand to the seat opposite him. “How’ve you… How are you?”

Jay slid into the booth, letting out a harsh bark of laughter. “Just fine, Sledgehammer. How about you? I asked Burgie how you were doing, he said you went off to college.”

Sledge’s eyes flickered down to his hands, so carefully folded on the table. “Yeah. Study birds.”

”Figured it would’ve been foxes when you’ve got that resemblance.”

Gene cracked a smile, looking back at his friend. “Yeah?”

Jay grinned, leaning back in the booth. “Missed you.”

“That why you’re here? You finally come looking for me?”

Jay’s face flushed and he shook his head. “That was an accident. Going to see Burgie, y’know, figured I’d at least take a look around your hometown.”

Sledge’s expression flickered somewhere between pleased and disappointed. “You wanna stay for dinner?”

”You mind having me?” 

“Of course not,” Eugene promised. “I never would.”

~*~  
  


Sledge absently scanned over the photos, in a whole other world. 

“How’d you get your hands on these, Sledgehammer?”

”Remember that gun my daddy sent me?” he asked. “Didn’t wanna be near it once the war was over.”

Eugene’s fingertips drifted over the photograph, mentally ticking off people in them that had been lost. 

“You stuck in that mind of yours, Sledgehammer?” De L’Eau murmured from beside him, brushing the redhead’s wrist. “You look like you’re thinking real hard.”

“Just a bit,” he admitted, glancing at Jay. 

The brunet finally smiled, his eyes brushing over Eugene’s face. 

“You think too much.”

Gene’s mouth suddenly felt too dry and he broke eye contact. “Jay?”

De L’Eau hummed, squeezing his friend’s hand in response.

”D’you think you could stay? Spend the night, maybe? I could take the couch, it's just been a while since I-“

Jay cut him off, making Gene look at him. 

“Course I will.”

The tension left the redhead’s body at once, making him relax and slump against his friend’s side. 

”Do you remember that night you told me everything would be alright?” Jay asked softly, looping his arms around Eugene’s slim body. “You were there for me. I’m gonna be here for you too, okay, Sledgehammer?”

Eugene wordlessly nodded, letting his head rest on Jay’s shoulder as he gazed out the window.

The visit to see Burgin would have to wait - he had business in this sleepy southern town.


End file.
